


A Mender of Bad Souls

by Bryn Lantry (Bryn)



Series: Ursus Major [1]
Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1993-01-01
Updated: 1993-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:56:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bryn/pseuds/Bryn%20Lantry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Gauda Prime, Blake and Avon spout 'Julius Caesar' at each other</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mender of Bad Souls

**Author's Note:**

> printed in the zine 'Songs Of Innocence', editor Emily Ross, 1993

###

“Nasty world,” remarked the laconic ruffian steering the flyer.

Reserved, Avon analysed the passing forest, as though this spiritual condemnation were material. “Do elaborate.”

“Mean. Squalid. Brutal.” That evocative baritone perversely relished the adjectives.

“Not the kind of planet you once hoped to establish your righteous army on, Blake.”

“My standards have fallen.”

Narrowing his eyes, Avon pondered the stiff tunic and heavy belt distended with weaponry. “You certainly reflect the general tenor of Gaudan civilization.”

“You won't have much trouble mixing, either,” Blake told him in genial irony.

“My studs are too polished.”

A rumble from his grimy chest, which the shirt half revealed. “Soul, Avon. Soul is what no-one can disguise here. You're far from pristine.”

“Mystical of you, Blake. Souls, fortunately, don't exist.”

“Bad ones do. See enough souls rotting and you believe.”

“At least you've stopped relying upon good ones. You're more reasonable than on Liberator.”

“Liberator,” snorted Blake. “If your philosophy then was as reasonable as mine now, I'm sorry as hell for you.” The flyer banked steeply.

Gauntlet braced against the dashboard, Avon queried whether this were another dream. No, the pirate next to him was stranger than in any of the reunions Avon orchestrated in his sleep. Yet he was Blake. Wasn't he?

Sibillant and sarcastic, Avon asked, “Glad to see me, Blake?”

“Haven't you noticed?”

“No.”

“Good. I'm learning.”

For the first time in several hours of his friend's company, Avon smiled. His sense of humour twisted more every year. “To business, then. Your operation looks quite promising. If I were you, however, I'd delegate the bounty hunting, unless I had a deathwish.”

“Et tu, Brute?” muttered Blake.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Good play. You'd appreciate it. Lean and hungry Cassius who seldom smiles. Noble Brutus, bullheaded and a prig. The faults of each botch their rebellion.”

“I'm acquainted with the tragedy.”

“After that they quarrel and drink to brotherhood and die fighting.”

Avon watched the swarthy, enigmatic profile. “Onto a more personal plane --”

“Personal?”

“Have you forgotten?”

“No, I've not forgotten.”

Weird drumming began in Avon's jugular. He addressed the windscreen. “When I questioned Deva about Jenna, he called her your smuggler lady.”

“You knew she was a smuggler.”

“And Blake's lady?”

“She's dead, Avon,” the other bellowed.

Avon jerked. Lukewarm, he answered, “I regret that.”

“You had better.”

“Nevertheless, you slept with her.”

“That a crime?”

Avon clamped a vicious stare on him. “Yes.”

A nearly mellow glance from the single eye. “You're a funny one. You strand me in a pod, but expect me to be faithful to your memory.”

“Careful what you jest about, Blake.”

“Would an average person have treasured our liaison?”

“I'm not pretending things were perfect.”

“Have you slept with no-one since me, or have you hypocritical standards?”

“You were mine then,” ground Avon. “You are mine now. Simple truth, you bastard. I mean neither of us to sleep elsewhere in the future.” His mouth quivered with malignancy.

“You were going to fire at me this morning, my charmer.”

“I wasn't.” Avon spoke too quickly.

“One of my tracking gallery's pillars came to a sticky end.”

“When Vila bowled me over, the trigger was knocked.”

“I see.”

“Damn you to every perdition, Blake.”

“I live in most.”

“You think I don't?”

Wind squealed as the transport nosedived, smoking.

“Where did you get your flyer license?” inquired Avon. “The suicide ward of the nuthouse?”

“Be pleasant and I'll fly decently. We're going to patrol a bit on foot. I was trailing a guerilla named Arlen yesterday, in this region – never found her.”

The woods gleamed with aqua twilight. Avon followed the forester's stalking boots, his eyes miserly and lewd. Shortly, he pinioned that bluff chest against a tree.

“What did you come to Gauda Prime for, Kerr? A resistance leader or a lay?”

He grinned like a wolf. “A lay.”

“I'm waging a war.”

“I'm demanding five minutes of your time.”

A crinkle of amusement under the good eye. “Five minutes?”

“Did the process ever take us longer? Neither had the disclipine to slow down.”

“Into discipline these days? Your leather and buckles look like an enticement to s and m.”

“If you are.”

“I'm not that far gone, quite.”

“Fuck me, Roj,” he pleaded harshly, and yanked the belt loose. “You owe me two years' worth.”

“Let me hang onto the gun. You've picked a snakepit to make love in.” But the words were gutteral.

Avon chewed on his soiled neck. “You savour of loam and leaves – do you sleep in ditches on a hunt?”

“Would you like me perfumed?” ridiculed Blake.

“I can handle you however you come.”

Never noticing the temperature, Avon shoved his suit down to his knees. Drunken on a huge, fleshy cock, he lurched boisterously, buffeting Blake against the pine. Whenever he saw that cock, his brain was ruined. That fact struck Avon as neither wholesome, nor fair. The black magic worked here, just like in the past. Nothing else could boil his cold blood or undermine his puritanism. Bones rattling, Avon dashed come over his downfall. With the laugh of a satyr he tunnelled his thighs and crushed that magnificent thing into oblivion.

“Persuaded you belong to me?” was his wild whisper.

“Kerr,” growled Blake. “Why are you preternaturally sensuous? Your bad-tempered mouth and everything you do.”

Rain plashed from the dark green sky, obliging Avon to zip his black armour.

“You were right about the five minutes,” Blake observed.

“I was right about everything.”

“Wrong about me, handsome. Might we return to work?”

Up the next hill, bramble netted a thin corpse. “Arlen,” verified Blake, inspecting the purple, tumbledown face. “Murdered for her gun, I would guess. Pity – she had an interesting reputation.” He gestured. “Grab the girl's feet, she can ride in the back seat.”

Avon's lip arched impatiently. “A stiff? Are you a grave robber too?”

“Heard of money? As I recall, you were keen on it. Comes in handy for my arsenal.”

“So you do sell people.”

“I sell meat. What people revert to when they're killed. Jellied blood and ashes to ashes returned.” Blake slung the body over a shoulder, grim as the proverbial reaper. “If she were alive, I'd test her for recruitment. Since she won't be fighting any more Feds, she can buy a few lasers for the next world-changers. A rebel would prefer that to burial in friendly territory.”

“A fanatic would.”

“Sales are necessary to keep my cover. The police corps thinks I've more bloodthirst than sense because I never catch them a live one.”

“What do you do with your rejects?”

“You can inquire about policy details later.”

Avon studied him queerly. “I'll help carry the merchandise.”

“My job – dirty though it is. You watch our backs.” He stomped off under the grisly burden, rain trickling through his short curls.

On the flight back to base Blake was gruff, treating his companion like a negligable underling. Moody as a planet without climate control, thought Avon, wondering what had gone in that familiar mind since the Andromedan War split them up.

Walking from the hangar, there was a glimpse of sun between the clouds. Blake towed Avon to a window, nodded in pride. “My army.”

Down in the basement a squadron of fifty were snapping laser rifles or kicking and jabbing, in raucous bonhomie.

“Scum from the gutters of G.P.,” said Blake. “Misfits, outcasts. And I go among the bounty hunters to keep a few from slaughter. Good people, Avon, every cutthroat there. The only cheering sight in the galaxy.” A stray chant – “ _Draw round, beloved and bitter men, draw round and raise a shout_ \--”

“You haven't changed so much.”

“I've changed, my friend, in one small, significant particular. I want to die. Can you stop that?”

Blake tramped into a sub-station and refused to be followed.

True to tradition, reflected Avon, Roj enters terminal depression theatrically, making sure everyone knows where he's going. Deva, for one, plainly suffered from his captain's unruliness.

As he proceeded, ruminating, an anonymous figure paused. “The famous Avon.”

“Am I famous?”

“Wherever Blake goes, you're famous. I'm disappointed, though. From what he told us, I expected something ten feet tall.”

Avon smirked to himself and searched out the Scorpio crew. His accomplices stuck together here like a Space Rat pack in static streets. Vila's whistle was wet.

“Different, isn't he?” moped the thief. “Not our jovial Blake.”

“Fearless Leader may not be an object lesson in psychic health just now.” The ancient nickname was used to the one who'd prevented assassination that morning. “Then again, an idealist can't be, and a rabble-rouser shouldn't be. Blake will serve our purposes admirably.”

“So you vote to take up residence?” asked Soolin.

“You must judge Blake's outfit and decide for yourselves.”

Dayna pressed, “But you?”

“I stay.”

#

Overnight, Avon versed himself in _Julius Caesar._ Envious, dangerous Cassius, who smiled as if he mocked himself, loved honourable Brutus. Humouring Brutus and his lofty brow was political disaster – or so went Avon's interpretation. Yet reading their row after failure resembled vivisection.

“Brutus hath rived my heart,” repeated Avon aloud – the outdated forms made the words possible.

Ambivalently, Blake had picked him off the tracking gallery floor. That nasty bit of work, Cassius, accused:

_– You love me not._

_– I do not like your faults._

Early in the morning his door was rapped. Cuffing his face into liveliness, Avon welcomed in, as hoped, a surly giant blackened with stubble. “You show evidence of having worked through the night, Blake.”

“Repulsed yet?”

“No such luck. In fact, I need --” Like an idiot, Avon snatched for the terribly near crotch.

Blake caught the trespasser. “Go on, Kerr. You were about to express a necessity, not for dear Roj, but for dear Roj's generative instrument. Am I right? If I amputated the portion in question and threw it at you, I believe you'd be content.”

“It wouldn't operate without its irrational symbiont.”

“No more sex, Avon.”

The reaction was fury. “ _You_ say.”

“Planning to ravish me at gunpoint?”

“Don't I have the right?”

“Possibly.”

“Lost the urge in your age, Blake? Preferred Jenna? Prefer your right hand? Shall I tell you what I think of mine?”

“I'm not being awkward to torment you, Kerr.”

“I think you are.”

Exitting, Blake waved to Orac. “Come on, and bring your other half. Today we're overhauling the computers. Which are bloody primitive, I warn you.”

Fortified on black coffee, Avon acquainted Orac and the rebel camp's system. Deva hovered. When given some privacy, Avon elected for a gracious overture. “Tell me about this affair with Jenna.”

Blake glowered, mistrustful.

“I won't be iconoclastic. I've pardoned your adultery.”

That threw him. “Know who caused me to sleep with her, Avon?”

“Go on.”

“Thank you, Roj. If you've finishing dealing compliments, I must check on my crew --”

Blake stood too, smiling. “Going to listen to me?”

He plopped down again. “Naturally. You don't dispose of me like a mutoid.”

“You extorted stark sex over instrument panels.”

“Define stark.”

“Jenna was soft and affectionate.”

The terminal engaged Avon's rigid attention. “Am I to conclude you require me soft and affectionate?”

Blake's strained grin was audible. “At least you have a sense of humour. Anyway, too late for me for anyone's tenderness.”

The nape of his neck prickled. “Why too late, good Brutus?”

A short silence. “No need to allude to souls again. The ploughed up eye is enough.”

Avon faced that red sickle. Grasping Blake, he kissed the damaged socket, warmly, recklessly.

At another terminal, Deva and two technicians goggled as if he were a freak show.

Blake leapt away from his sustained kiss, and retreated for the remainder of the day.

#

Sleep crawled out of Avon's head that night when teeth fenced his ear. Gnarly-joined fingers gate-crashed where they'd been severely missed. “Do it quickly,” Avon importuned, thighs lax. In bed, if nowhere else, his rebel was tractable. Avon's jaws gaped in rapture. He was reeling in solar winds, besotted on the pillow, panting in the beatitude of Blake fucking him. “Every last bit of you,” he insisted, tugging his auxiliary tyrannically.

Blake sobbed in dreadful orgasm. Then he reported, “When I'm in you I always think I'm going to die there.”

“I'll see that you do, Roj.”

“Did you deliberately neglect to pick up my pod?”

Melodiously cynical, Avon said, “Am I to answer such a question with your cock in my rear?”

While that completion of his body retracted, Avon bit knuckles.

“Answer now.”

“I won't,” he flung.

Abandoning him, Blake roamed the room. Avon listened in the stuffy gloom, frowning, no good to either of them. Even Cassius was less an emotional cripple.

_– You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand_

_Over your friend that loves you._

Blake spoke piteously. “See, I fear I can't love you anymore.”

“Did you then?”

“Possibly not.”

A hideous grating – “Did you love _her_?”

“You or no-one ever, Kerr.”

“I might have killed you had you said yes.”

“On Liberator I was optimist enough to hope for more. I can't abide resignation to less.”

“What if it's all we get?”

Spitted words – “Then give me nothing.”

“Damned idealist,” Avon swore, and wrenched Blake onto his lap. “Take a sober look at me. However deficient I am, I'm what you have.”

Crooked over Avon, he explained, “I doubt I even believe in love after knowing so much death.”

“Believe in blood and ruin for anything I care,” choked Avon. “But in the devil's name, believe in me.” His agitated hand resorted to groping.

“Don't you ever give up?”

“Get massive, Blake, for your other native habitat. I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love.”

That provoked a quirky grin. “Kerr, you're obscene.”

“In the vicinity of lamebrained crusaders. While we're on down-to-earth subjects, my megalomaniac, you've ignored mine.”

“Serves you bloody right, my horror.” Blake's fist smeared his cheeks.

“For hauling you back from the dead? Actually, you're bound to resent me ferociously for a while. I know that reaction. But even when you hate me, I'm going to screw you over every night for the duration of your sorry existence. You need the therapy, dearest Roj.”

“Call me that enough times, and I might forgive you and the universe everything.”

“Dearest Roj,” chanted Avon insidiously. “Dearest Roj.” He licked salty residue from the scar – that eye wasn't too dead to cry. “Dearest Roj.”

###


End file.
